Both of these companies are trying to capture the idea of mass customization by allowing the shopper to design athletic shoes online. NikeID was the first website that allowed people to customize shoes. There is no real premise behind the idea for Nike, Puma went with Mongolian BBQ. Their premise for shoe design is that your a chef creating the perfect meal and the shoes you design is the equivalent to a good meal. Nike went with the straight forward approach in just letting people cross right over from regular shopping to designing a shoe. The transition works well because many of Nike's shoes are offered in the NikeID customizer.
The Puma creation tool is different. It allows you to select from three different shoe types and then start customizing from there. While Puma may have some cool and original design options i believe that since Nike offers more styles of shoes that it is a better choice for designing your own shoe.
The type of website design for the two companies is basically the same. While they look different they are both flash intensive having a load time required, the organizational layout is also the same. The two website also share a similar format. They both are colorful and well designed flash sites and work well and provide a very positive user experience.
With Nike the idea of designing your own shoe seems to fit in with the experience. It is like a usual extension. You can actually be looking though shoes not on NikeID then see one pre-made that is and ID product. You can load that design, then change one thing, and purchase. Puma you can select pre-made styles but still only on three shoe styles. Nike offers more options for the experience. The Puma design in my opinion feels tacked on as something that might not be around forever. NikeID seems to be pretty standard now on their website. Mongolian BBQ does not inspire me to go design a shoe. For me the process could take weeks to decide on a final product. With a name like Mongolian BBQ why should I expect Puma to keep their designer up indefinitely.
While the websites of these two companies are both generated by their own designers the ability to design your own shoe is an example how internet companies are trying to become more web2.0 with user customization. These companies realize that user generated content could be the future of the business.
This push towards mass customization is the latest idea for companies that are trying to give their customers what they want, and more importantly something original. While the customer experience might be completely different on the two different sites you have to look at what is the same. Besides aesthetics the sites are almost identical. The customization option, the flash intensive sites, the breakdown of sports, these are all similarities between the Puma and Nike websites.
The Nike site also allows the user to do something very cool that the Puma site cannot, save your shoe with a background as an image that can be used as a background. This is an easy way to save your shoe without registering. You just save the image and you have your shoe design saved on your computer. This extension is one of the features for the Nike site.
I believe that the Nike site is better due to that you don't need to leave the web page via a link to design the shoe. Everything is right in front of you when looking at the NikeID site. The Puma site links you over to another page, opening another window. I feel the design of the Nike site just meshes with NikeID and it all works together to provide a great web experience for the user. Also NikeID allows you to customize more then just shoes, there are options for custom made t-shirts and backpacks, options which Puma does not have.
The visual design between the two sites is radically different. The features and options and the breakdown of foot ware shopping are the same but the face they present is different. I prefer Nike's site because of the well designed box formula they have. Everything is contained in the center of the screen and each different item is separated into its own box in the design. With the vibrant colors and high quality images it really does look like a quality rendering. The Puma site is mostly white space with a side bar menu and a few centralized buttons on the screen. While the colors work very well together and the site is not poorly designed but it does not have the "POP!" that the Nike site does, just jumping off the screen into your face. Plus Nike has Kobe as a celebrity endorser in a very entertaining video. They beat Puma hands down.
Dell was 0ne 0f the first companies to offer such wide options for personalization. People can design personal computers and have them shipped to their door. This personalization represent the idea that people want some options in buying their products, they want choice.
